CHAPTER 434: A FULL HOUSE

The atmosphere so far had been relatively pleasant.

It wasn’t necessarily Serana’s intention to disrupt the nice mood, but she didn’t exactly give a fuck about keeping it either.

Serana knew her mother was the sweetest, most gentle woman in the world.

That was why she had to be hard on people who tried to disparage her. There were a lot of people in the world who deserved such a thing, but Sei wasn’t one of them.

Shinji seemed uncomfortable with Serana’s rather inflammatory line of questioning. Understandably so.

The looks that the children had been giving him changed almost immediately.

"...I don’t know that any answer would be a good one."

"Something is better than nothing."

Shinji didn’t know if he could disagree with her there.

He looked out the window of their booth and stared into the street where cars drove by and people were walking in pairs along the sidewalks.

For some reason, he seemed almost nostalgic.

"I felt betrayed." He finally said.

Serana put her glass down. "...Run that by me again?"

"It won’t sound any better no matter how many times you hear me say it."

"Maybe I was just hoping that I heard you wrong."

Shinji shook his head.

"You didn’t. I felt betrayed by your mother when she ran away to be with your father. He was a feckless, flippant, weak-willed young man with no ambition or any concept of personal responsibility."

’Not gonna rague with you on that..’ Serana slowly sipped from her straw.

"I wasn’t happy with your mother for leaving. I was going to hand my entire empire over to her one day, and she left me to be with a boy whose only interest was in drawing pictures." Shinji was getting angry just thinking about it.

For a moment, Serana thought she saw his eyes turn an azure blue.

After calming himself down, Shinji went back to staring at his glass of chilled orange juice.

"...I wasn’t happy. And I felt betrayed. But I gave your mother the opportunity to come home if she was willing to apologize. She didn’t take it."

Serana felt like she’d just gotten whiplash. "...Come again?"

"You are asking me to repeat a lot of things today."

"Of course I am, you just lied to my face! When mom called you asking to come home, you called her a whore and told her she embarrassed you!"

For the first time, Serana saw her grandfather stare at her with a hard gaze.

"I wasn’t a perfect father, but I have never in my life called your mother anything other than her name. No matter what she has done, that is still my child. And..." Shinji dropped his gaze and began scratching the table absentmindedly. "I wanted to meet my grandchild. I would never have told your mother not to come home."

Serana, in a rare twist, was completely speechless.

Shinji didn’t seem like he was lying. There was always a chance that he was a really good actor, but Serana didn’t know if he had that kind of range. This was a real Michael B Jordan-level performance.

"...You didn’t talk to mom on the phone that day, did you?"

Shinji set his lips in a thin line and shook his head.

A silence persisted between the two as realizations settled into their minds.

Serana immediately stood up.

"I’ll beat that bitch up." She said in English.

"Sissy, that’s our grandma..." Camille reminded.

"I don’t give a fuck if she’s the president, she gotta die for this shit."

Shinji naturally could no longer follow the conversation, but he could tell by Serana’s body language that she was quite upset.

Her balled fists were certainly a worrying indicator, but Shinji told himself that Serana couldn’t possibly be angry enough to strike a family member.

He had forgotten that Serana didn’t know that lady from Adam. She wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over knocking her grandmother’s teeth out.

"Cami, teleport me back home, I think it’s time I have a real nice conversation with-"

Before Serana could actually finish her threat, her smart watch buzzed several times in a row.

When she read the message flashing across her phone, she forgot all about the beating she owed her grandmother.

-

Lately, whenever Joanne got home and went looking for Malachi, she always found him in the same place. The kitchen.

He still wasn’t allowed to cook with the demonic curse still ravaging through his system. So he tortured himself by watching everyone else do it.

Joanne knew by the way his arms were folded and his brow was permanently furrowed that he had been watching for a while already.

"Bad day?"

Malachi couldn’t even take his eyes off Nadine who was eating happily. His hands were folded in front of his face as if he were sick to his stomach.

"She made cup ramen in the microwave..."

"What exactly is so wrong with that?"

"She forgot to put water in the cup first."

"Oh." Joanne was wondering why there was a burnt smell in her home.

"She wouldn’t even take my suggestion to add an egg or maybe some cut-up conecuh sausage... she’s just eating it as plain as day."

"He wouldn’t let me put cheese in it." Nadine pouted.

"She tried to put fucking cheese in it." Malachi threw up his hands.

Nadine audibly slurped her cup noodles while making direct, infuriating eye contact with her husband.

What added insult to injury was knowing that Nadine didn’t even need to eat regular food. She was rage-baiting her husband for the love of the game.

"Okay..." Joanne murmured. "Anything else happen today aside from our family’s questionable noodle choices?"

Nadne let out a small burp. "Mal kidnapped the guy responsible for turning everyone into superheroes, and now he’s trying to figure out what to do with him."

"Not a kidnapping..." Mal sighed.

"It was basically a kidnapping." Nadine shrugged.

Almost everyone else in the world would agree with her.

Joanne raised an inquisitive brow at her husband. "You haven’t called command yet?"

Mal shook his head.

"...Any particular reason?"

Mal wasn’t even sure where to begin.

What was he going to do when he had to go back and tell his government that the reason why 70% of Japan suddenly had superpowers was not because of some malevolent plot, but instead the work of a good-natured idiot.

He didn’t know if they’d buy it. There was also a lingering concern about what they would ask him to do now that he had Shoto in custody.

To top things off, there was that old woman’s prophecy...

"Long story..." Was all that he managed to say.

Joanne seemed to recognize that her husband had been on the business end of a rather exhausting day.

All she could do was pat him on the cheek affectionately and hope that was enough to soothe his spirit.

"Oh yeah, we’re going to have some more company for a bit." Nadine suddenly said.

Malachi and Joanne stared at her incredulously.

"...We are?? Who?!"

"Your sister, her wives and the kids. Apparently they’ve got some stuff going on at home so she asked if she could stay with us for a little bit."

Joanne’s face lit up slightly. "Oh wow, that might be nice... the girls will probably be thrilled to have their cousins around."

Malachi was also slightly excited to hear his sister and best friend would be coming to stay with them for a while.

With everything going on, Malachi was hoping that being surrounded by family would make his world feel a little less crazed.

"When are they supposed to get-"

Nadine pointed behind him.

Floating just beyond the sofa was an ominous black portal.

No matter how long the trio waited, no one came through the opening.

Joanne gave her husband a slight nudge.

"I think that’s their way of saying they need help with their stuff..."